Back There Again With The Dead
by rockofmarduk
Summary: One year after the death of Jack Forrest, Harry the news vendor remembers that horrible night and get's an unexpected visitor. Maniac Cop 2 One Shot.


Back There Again With The Dead

By Phantomghostjedi

Summery: One year after the death of Jack Forrest, Harry the news vendor remembers that horrible night and get's an unexpected visitor. One Shot.

Main Characters: Harry, Matt Cordell

Supporting Characters: Jack Forrest

Movie Summery: The mysterious Officer Matt Cordell is stalking the streets of New York once more...the "Maniac Cop" is back! Once Cordell was a hero, a supercop, but he was framed by crooked superiors and now nothing can stop him on his macabre mission of vengeance. They thought he'd vanished into the murky river depths when he crashed off the pierhead in a stolen police van...but they were terribly wrong. You can't kill the dead that easily and the wrong arm of the law is back. Cordell's burning need for revenge has driven him into an unholy alliance with a vicious serial murderer. Now, the city's two most feared killers have become partners in terror, sharing a chilling common bond - the need to destroy. For more information about this movie and it's sequels check it out at

Maniac Cop com

Author Note: I don't own Harry, Matt Cordell or Jack Forrest. The story, plot, situations and characters belong to writer and producer Larry Cohen and director William Lustig.

Snow in New York city. It's the most beautiful thing in the world.

Snow covered the tree's in centrel park making it look like a winter wonderland. Twinkling lights stretched from roof top to roof top, shining like all the colors of the rainbow. Last minute Christmas shoppers ran in and out of department stores, carrying presents wrapped in shiny colored paper topped off with big bows. It was the spirit of the season that put everyone in a good mood.To every man, woman and child who could see it, it was the best time of the year.

That is for everyone who could see it.

You see for Harry the newspaper vendor, he couldn't see the wonder of the new year. In fact he hadn't been able to see anything for a long time. Harry was blind. He could hear everything, taste, and touch everything, better then he had ever had when he could see. But while Harry loved Christmas, a part of him hated it. Each Christmas seemed to bring both joy and pain. The joy of friends, of family, of the very fact that he was alive and living his life to the fullest. The pain of losing friends from his past, a family member taken away to soon in life and knowing he would never see anything ever again. This year seemed no different, but the year before, on this very day, something terrible happened. Something that would stay with him his entire life and bring back even more terrible memories from his past.

One Christmas long ago during world war II Harry was stationed in Cicily with his comrades, waiting it out in a fox hole. Suddenly the sky was filled with explosions and smoke as gunfire raged all around them. The last thing Harry ever saw was what looked like a grenade being thrown into the foxhole, right in-front of his face. Then there was nothing. The next thing Harry knew when woke up was he couldn't see. At first he thought there was just dirt in his eyes, and tried to wipe it away. When that didn't work he tried to get out of the foxhole, but found that he couldn't move. He then realized that what was covering him was not rock's and dirt but bodies. The very bodies of his fellow comrades that moments ago he was sitting with alive, laughing and talking away about the girl's they left back home and what they planed on doing after the war, that was all up in smoke now. Harry then tired yelling for help but got no reply. It was then that Harry realized that he was all alone, he was the only one that made it. That night as Harry waited for help, the bodies lying on top of him and around him froze. It was unlike anything that Harry had ever felt. To feal the frozen flesh of his dead friends hands wraped all around as if trying to shelter him from the same cold fate, it was the most terrifying experience of his whole life.

That is until years later. After being rescued from the pile of corpses and returning to New York, Harry tried to get back to normal civilian life. He got married, started a family and even gotten himself a job, all the while trying to get use to not being able to see it at all. As time went by it got easier. Using his other senses he handled day to day life like he had never lost his sight. He could tell when someone was short changing him or trying to seek away a newspaper without paying. It was during this time that he first met Jack.

Jack. Officer Jack Forrest. A young up and coming patrolman with the whole future ahead of him. Harry couldn't help but smile each time he thought about him. He was almost always happy, grinning full of life. They'd talk about the weather, the crazy's that where wandering the street, the stuff that was going on at the precinct and sometimes what was going on in his home life. Well at least they use to.

Even though Jack never said it, Harry got the impression that things were not going to well between Jack and his wife Ellen. Anytime he brought up his wife Jack's voice would croak and he would stammer a bit as if he was trying to think of what to say about his wife. Though he did notice a change in Jack over the last two months. He seemed much more chipper then usual with a bit of a bounce to his step. It wasn't until Harry was read the newspaper by his wife that he learned the reason why.

Jack it seemed was living a double life. He had a mistress on the side, a fellow cop by the name of Theresa Mallory. His wife was becoming paranoid and thought that the entire world was out to get her, forcing Jack to take extra shifts just to stay away from his apartment. Soon though's extra shifts turned into late night rendezvous in hotel rooms, a secret he kept hidden from his wife and friends.

That is until she decided to follow him one night.

See around that time a series of brutal murders started happening around the city, all of which were supposed to be done by a large uniformed cop. And all of his victims were innocent people just going about their normal routines. It was a scary thought, the idea that what was supposed to protect you would instead be trying to kill you. And that's what happened to Ellen. She had followed her husband one night after the forth murder had been committed. It had been discovered that Ellen had gotten strange phone calls from an unknown person who had told her that her husband was the killer which is why he kept on going out late at night. When Ellen discovered the truth about Jack and Theresa, Ellen threated Jack with a gun and ran out of the hotel building, only to be discovered by a maid the next morning, dead in Jack's hotel room. Jack had been immediately arrested on suspicion of the murder of his wife and the death's

of the four other people. Harry didn't believe a word of what he heard and believed in Jack's innocence.

It turned out he was right.

After a series of terrible death's and other strange inncidents, Jack was able to prove his innocence after he and the real killer drove off a pier in a stolen police van and into the murky waters below. Jack survived and both he and Theresa tried to convince everyone that Matt Cordell an ex-cop was the killer. The only problem with that was Matt Cordell was dead.

Harry had never met Cordell, but he sure had heard of him. He was know as a supercop to the press, a hero to the public and pain in the ass to the mayors office. His motto was "shoot first and ask question's later" and his ideal brand of justice was what got him in trouble. He was arrested and tried on trumped up charges and sent to the very prison that he sent all the criminal's he had arrested. Sing-sing. The very worst of prisons. Unfortunately Matt didn't live for very long in prison and was killed by the very inmates he himself had arrested. At least that was the story he heard. That's what everyone believed. And that's what got Jack killed. The truth.

One year ago Harry was at his newsstand outside city hall, as usual stacking some newspapers and magazines that had just come in for the late night addition. It was a cool, peaceful night and Harry didn't hear the usually sound of horns honking and drivers yelling. It was almost Christmas Eve and for once the city decided to give him an early gift of peace and quiet for tonight. As Harry continued stacking he heard a familiar sound of footsteps heading in his direction.

"Hey Harry" A voice Harry hadn't heard in a long time called out to him.

"Oh, oh, Forrest it's you." Harry grinned from ear to ear as his friend came over. "Determined to get your picture in the paper. I guess congratulations are in order."

As Harry passed over the paper to Jack, he thought he heard a strange sound in the distance. Almost like a twirling sound, not a propeller blade nor the sound of a fan going, but something else. Something familiar.

"Hey that's not such a bad picture." Jack said happily, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "Tell you what Harry, I'll take a dozen of them."

"A dozen it is. I've alway's wanted to have a celebritie around here." Harry laughed as when to get the papers. Now that was the Jack he use to know and love. Happy, energetic, ready to face the world. As Harry got more papers he heard the twirling sound again. This time he knew what it was. It was a policeman's baton. He knew many policemen liked to twirl their baton's when out on their beat. It was nothing unusual. Just knowing that there where cops near by made him more at ease.

"OK Harry give me your hand. This is a five, you trust me?" Jack asked as he pulled out a five and handed it to Harry.

"I trust you." Harry chuckled as he took the five bucks from Jack. As Harry turned back to his counter to put away the money he noticed that he no longer heard the twirling sound of the baton.

"Alright you keep the change."

"Thank you, thank you, alright." Harry smiled as he returned back to his counter and continued the evening newspapers.

"OK, let's see what they said about Theresa." Jack muttered as he opened the newspaper and began reading the article. As Harry continued stacking the papers he suddenly heard the most horrific group of noises he had ever heard. First was the sound of slicing and the ripping of flesh, as well as the sound of tearing newspaper. Then he heard Jack. Or at least what sounded like Jack. It was the cross between a gurgle and a scream trying to rip out of some one's throat. It was Jack.

Harry scrambled away from the counter and went towards the sound of the noise. "Jack, Jack! What's going on! What's happening!" Harry started to panic as he searched for his friend. If there was ever a time he needed his eyes, then now was the time. As Harry felt around he finally located what felt like a handle of some sort. As his hand moved across the handle, he grasped onto a gloved hand. And that's when Harry almost went into shock. He found himself back in Cicily, when the grenade flew into the foxhole, and the bodies of his friend's cover him like a frozen blanket. And that was exactly what the hand of this man felt like. He could feel his cold dead hand even through the thickness of the glove he was wearing.

He was back there again with the dead.

Harry quickly shook himself free of that horrible memory and concentrated on Jack. He felt as the man pulled away from him, and then felt Jack as he crumbled to the ground. "Jack, talk to me! Talk to me!" Harry found himself shouting as he realized it was to late to save Jack. He was gone. But his killer was probable still in the viscinity. Perhaps it wasn't too late to catch him.

"Help, Police, Police, Police!" Harry shouted at the top of his lung's and waved his arm's about, hoping to catch someone's attention. He finally caught the attention of some cop's coming out of city hall, and the rest as they say is history.

One year later after the murder, Harry is still behind his counter, selling and stacking newspapers, counting money, stopping would be thieves from stealing without paying. But this year it was different. This year Jack wasn't there. Nor was his girlfriend Theresa. Nor were allot of the other cops he use to know. They were all dead. Turn's out that Matt Cordell wasn't dead, he'd just been bideing his time, wait for the perfect moment to strike back against the ones who stopped him before. Jack was one of those people. That was the man who killed Jack. That was the man whose's hand he felt that night. That dead cold hand.

After killing Jack, he went on to kill Jack's girlfriend Mallory, and later shot up the police station killing god knows how many people in there. The official report was Matt Cordell was killed in Sing Sing, the very prison that he was sent to. Wether or not that was true Harry wasn't so sure anymore.

Harry sighed and shook his head. Christmas was the time of joy and happyness, not a time for sorrow and regret. Jack wouldn't want him thinking about his death. Not at Christmas. He'd want him to enjoy the holidays.

As Harry began to feel more at ease, he heard someone come up to the counter. "Yes sir what can I get for you tonight."

"You can give me your money for a start." A nasty sounding voice said, as he pulled out a gun from his jacket pocket and aimed it at Harry.

Harry frowned. "You have got to be kidding me. It's Christmas for chist sake."

The man shrugged but Harry didn't see it. "Sorry pal. Nothing personal, but even us criminal's need a little holiday cash to last us the year. Now..." Harry heard the cocking of the gun as the man continued "...had over the doe. I know you have some man. I've been watching you. You've been quite busy tonight."

Before Harry could respond, he heard a noise. A very familiar noise. A sound that made flinch each time he heard it. The sound of a twirling policeman's baton. No longer did that sound bring the peace and comfort that Harry felt before. Instead it made him afraid that the killer was back, ready to finish him off. He wasn't sure why the killer didn't kill him, except that because he was blind the killer probably didn't think him to be much of a threat. Then the twirling sound stopped as soon as it had started, but it sounded close. Really close.

"Hey old man. Are you deaf as well as blind?" The man growled as he aimed the gun a Harry's face. "I said give me the money or else you son of a bit... " The man suddenly stopped talking and the next thing Harry heard shook him to the bone.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The young man's scream took Harry completely off guard as he felt something crash into him and knock him to the snow covered ground. He could still here the man screaming, begging for his life from some unknown person. Then he heard a horrible noise. The same noise he had heard a year ago when Jack was killed. The sound of ripping and the slicing of skin. The gurgling and muffled scream's of a dead man.

It was him. He knew it was him. He wasn't dead. He was alive, Jack's killer was still alive!

As he listened to the young man's dead body drop to the ground, he heard killer turn around and heard the sound of footstep's crunching in the snow towards him. Large, heavy footsteps stopped right in front of him and then there was silence. For a moment Harry was to scared to move, unsure if the killer had come to save him or to finish the job and leave no wittnesses like the last time. That's when he felt something touch his hand. It was another hand, the killers hand. The minute that hand touched his he knew with complete certainty it was him.

Matt Cordell the Maniac Cop.

Cordell's hand wraped around his and with little effort helped him back onto his feet. Harry listen for a moment waiting to see what Cordell would say or do. Surely he came here for a reason, not just to save his butt, especially after all the horrible things he did. Harry continued to wait, thinking Cordell would at least say something to him.

Instead Cordell turned around and started walking away. Harry was surprised. Was that it? Was that all he wanted to do. Just kill someone without question, without mercy or compassion? He was just going to leave, not caring about what just occurred? Harry found himself getting mad. How dare that bastard show his face around here after all the lives he took. After taking Jack's life, Teresa's life, all those cops just trying to do their jobs. How dare he think he could just go around doing these things, not caring about the people he hurt, the family's he tore apart.

Before Harry knew what he was doing he shouted to Cordell. "Hey you son of a bitch! Get the fuck back here, Now! I ain't done with you yet."

To Harry's amazed ears, Cordell actually stopped, but didn't turn around.

"Where the hell do you get off killing all those innocent people! Have you got no soul? I can understand why you killed the guy's that screwed you but goddamn it, allot of those people were good people. My friend's, like Jack. He was a good man, he didn't deserve this shit. He didn't deserve to die. None of them deserved to die. " Harry shouted. He no longer cared what Cordell did to him at this point.

Harry rubbed his face trying to stop the tears from falling. "Just tell me why." He said in a weary voice. "Just tell me why you did it, Why Jack, why him. What did he ever do to you?"

For a moment there was silence. Then to Harry's amazement Cordell actually spoke.

"I..It.. was suppose to...to be me." He managed to say with great difficulty. His voice sounded as if he hadn't used it in a long while. It sounded scratchy, rough, and came out almost in a tired whisper."That.. was suppose.. to be my life. My job... my lover.. my Sally. My everything. I was ..suppose to be me, ..not him."

Harry stood there confused. Was that all. Cordell was mad at Jack for continuing to live his life without problem's, without worries like he had. Did he do all those horrible things to Jack to make him suffer like he had suffered? And who the hell was Sally. What did she have to do with this? Was she his girlfriend or maybe his wife who was no longer among the living? Was Sally the yin to Matt's yang like Jack and Teresa were? Was he jealous of them and what they had while he had nothing?

Before Harry could say anything and get the answers that he needed, Cordell started walking away, never looking back at Harry once as he disappeared into the thick snow that had just started to fall from the sky. For a moment Harry started to call him back, but stopped himself when he realized that would be suicide. Just because he answered Harry's question, didn't mean that he would keep on answering them. Not unless he wanted to end up just like Jack.

So instead Harry just stood there, alone in the snow, with the body of the now ex-robber lying a few feet away from him. Soon the police would come, they'd ask some question's about what had happened. But what could he possibly tell them. As he stood there, he gripped his hand into a fist and remembered Matt's hand wrapped around his. Cordell's cold dead hand. Gazing up into the starry,snowcover sky, a scene he could only see in his mind, he knew there was only one thing he could tell the police about what had happened tonight.

"I was back there again, with the dead."


End file.
